B.C. wildfire forces evacuations at Whistler, Blackcomb

Both Blackcomb and Whistler mountains have been evacuated as a vigorous forest fire quickly grew to 75 hectares on Thursday afternoon.

Fire crews were protecting nearby lodges from the uncontained blaze, but Whistler Fire Chief Rob Whitton said the fire was not threatening any Olympic runs or lifts.

A tower camera shows the forest fire near the ski resort Thursday

Seven air tankers and several helicopters are dropping water and fire retardant on the fire, according to the B.C. Ministry of Forests. Whitton said the winds appear to be pushing the fire east, away from the village.

A lightning strike is believed to have started the fire around 11:45 a.m. PT on the east coast of Crystal Ridge, halfway up the mountain on the northwest flank of Blackcomb Mountain, according to a statement released by Julia Waring, communications director for the Resort Municipality of Whistler.

Witnesses said flames stretched more than 30 metres into the sky.

Pina Belperio watched the fire grow with a bird’s-eye view from across Green Lake, north of Whistler.

"You can see lots of red-orange flames building up, and the wind’s just blowing the flames just right now, just activating the whole fire," said Belperio.

Ellie Dupont, fire information officer for the coastal fire centre, said the current heatwave is partly to blame.

“We’ve been going through quite a drying period. And then the lightning we’ve been receiving, I think this is the third hit for that area,” said Dupont.

103 Comments

It's raining in Whistler now and there were 7 bombers and lots of heli's dropping water. The fire is on Blackcomb and is quite a ways from the bike park. Hopefully it is contained so it does not spread that far. I'm sure the bike park will still open for the long weekend as long as there are no more lightning storms in the area.

Im just at the base of Blackcomb right now and we just got a bit of rain and from what I can tell it seems to be under control. They dumped a shit load of water on that fire, watched it for hours from whistler.

I'm also in whistler right now. And the fire is FAR away from the whistler hill's and most importantly, it got contain in the first hour it started. By the way, by evacuated whistler, they don't mean, evacuate all the hotels and everything. I'm still in my room and JUST rode the park. They evacuated people on the trails.. that's it!

dude shit f*ck suck...keeeeryst are there any bikers out there that have an ounce of grammer that isn't potty mouth, AND, can spell! grow up all of you...just because you can rip a bike doesn't give you a cooool factor for having an IQ of rock slime! You don't need to use the vocabulary of a bunch of bike posers pretending to be tailwhip 360 front flip A line rippers to be cool...the next time i'm sitting having a 'cool' one with my girlfriend @ whistler and i hear you spewing verbal vomit i will stick my socks that i have been wearing all day in my 'ripe'510 shoes so far down your throat you will be able to wipe your ass from the inside ! meantime, happy trails y'all. can you feel the love. jc.

before u all go saying 'nooo i love whistler i hope its going to be okay'
read what people are saying... 'ummm. Im also in whistler. This i some shitty reporting. My SGC coach just told us were riding tomorrow. evacuation my ass.'

i was there on wednesday and lightning started at 4 pm 1hour before the sign in for the phat wednesday races and they shut everything down for the night so the race was cancelled aparently the fire is out now i was texting some friends that live there.

I'm in Whistler and wow there is a lot of misinformation out there. This is a pretty serious fire. The fire was 75 hectares, which is a fair size and it was a rank 4 fire, on a scale of 6, also it was not contained an hour after it started, in fact it is still not contained. However, they hit it pretty hard yeasterday and it's down to 30 hectares and is now a rank 2 fire. If you want more info, go here: bcwildfire.ca/hprScripts/WildfireNews/OneFire.asp?ID=288

dude that sucks balls, good things it contained amagine what peopel would think of whistler for the olympics and crankworks well all the best to the mountain, i lvoe that mountain going up soon soo i hope it doesnt ruined the mountain =(

I was at Whistler all last week and it is very dry in places. On Friday I was on the mountain and they have been watering the areas in the bike area, a second use for snow making equipment. It is most likely the equivalent of peeing on a tree in the desert but I'm sure it allows people to use the hill and keep it open to tourists. On Saturday night in Squamish there was an incredible lighting storm that lasted an hour but was accompanied with massive rain. I'm sure more trail has been lost this week to earth moving equipment for more condos than to any naturally occurring fire. The riding was mind blowing BTW.

its honestly no big deal its a tiny fire right now and id say 75% contaned... they have been working there asses of all day... the olympics are next year and the luge and the new peak to peak is near by they are defenitly not risking it!

hey guys to answer your questions the mountain seems okay- i mean i rode today and everything seemed fine. i did hear a few helicopters fly over blackomb because i guess there are still some issues, but i am not too worried about whistler mountain.

watched this fire for an hour or so from whistler bike& bean. definitely nothing to worry about as far as crankworks and riding in general. its completely on the other side of blackcomb from whistler peak. and they had it under control by that night. they had it completely out by the following day.

dude it sucks a lot if there is anything someones gonna be dramatic about on here this would be a pretty legit. im goin for crankworx this year and id be pretty disapointed riding in a forest of burnt out tree stumps ahaha

ok so its going to be under control they have 8 days to clear it up before crankworx and its on the opposite side of the opposite mountain. they need the port alberni mars water bombers to just dump a load right on the mountain!